Here’s what we got up to for two days in Lijiang and Kunming.
We took the bus in the morning from Shangri-la to Lijiang. It took about half the day. I had to stop watching the road because the driver kept passing people on narrow mountain roads that dropped off into gorges. We made it safely in the end.
We got in and checked into our hostel – we decided to stay at the same one I stayed at the last time I was in Lijiang. We then went out to explore the old town.
We didn’t do too much because wanted to save it for the next day, which would be our full day in town (also my birthday). We ended up getting Lanzhou noodles and heading back to the hostel. This was the evening we were going to find out our exam results and our final degree classification. When we got back to the hostel, we got a message from one of our classmates that results were posted. It took over half an hour for us to load the website because of the bad wifi. In the end, I found out I got a first class! I was so relieved and happy. We had a couple of beers in the room, but still went to sleep early because we had spent a long time on the bus.
The next morning we headed back to the old town. First I called my family because it was my birthday. I really wanted to find this nice cafe I went to last time. So we wandered around – the sun even started to come out!
The cafe is called the Two Cats cafe. We got to sit on this balcony overlooking the roofs of the old town and the mountains in the distance. We had local Yunnan coffee.
We then went up the Lion Hill.
Unfortunately the tower was closed – the last time there was a cool art exhibition/shop up there. On a clear day, you can see Jade Dragon Snow Mountain from the top.
We then wandered around to find something to eat. I wanted to find something kind of nice and maybe get a beer and stay a while. It took us a long time to find something that looked nice and was open.
We saw a lot of the old town on the way. We eventually found this pizza place. We got some local beer, which is really good. We stuck candles in the pizza because it was my birthday.
After our really chill lunch, we headed to look for this bookshop I found. We ended up in a newer part of the old town, which I had never been to before. There were a lot of fancy boutiques and coffee shops.
The bookshop was called 猫的天空之城概念书店 (their English name is momibook). It was actually so much cooler than I was expecting. It was a Japanese-style stationery shop/bookstore/cafe. I actually found some really good stationery bits, which I treated myself to, since it was my birthday. They have branches all across China, so I recommend checking it out if you’re a fan of stationery.
We then walked back to the hostel (and hung out with their cute dog!).
I did a bit of journaling – I kept a travel journal for the whole trip.
We went out to dinner at a nearby street canteen. We got a bunch of dishes to try and put birthday candles in the food again. It was funny – I think the owner of the restaurant thought we were strange.
That evening at around 10, we got the overnight train to Kunming. We had a bit of trouble getting a taxi – I have found that it’s hard to get a taxi to the train station in Lijiang. I don’t know why. In the end, we used Didi, which is Chinese Uber. It worked and we made the train.
The next morning we woke up in Kunming! We got in mid-morning. We dropped our stuff at the hostel then headed out to explore. We found this temple nearby our hostel. It was an active temple, which is always so much more interesting.
I think the temple has ties to Thailand, so they had a Thai-style building in the back. It was pretty cool.
After that, we went to Green Lake park. I went there last time I was in Kunming. It must be the national capital for old people dancing in parks. There were so many people there dancing and watching. There was a band of retired people playing various brass and wind instruments. There were so many groups dancing to music coming from big speakers. Louisa and Catriona joined in for a bit (because I made them).
We also spotted the best Chinglish outfit ever: “Kate Moss and some pizza slices.” We had seen this one before – it was the stuff of Chinglish legends. We were so excited when we saw it again.
We went to find some mango juice because it was really hot. We were looking for one of the chain mango juice stores, but we found this independent one and actually it was so much better. It’s not far from the Culture Alley, and it’s definitely worth going to. Their special is mango juice and coconut milk.
We then walked around Culture Alley. This is a must-see spot in Kunming. It’s one of my favorite areas in China. There’s a lot of cool restaurants there, including the famous Salvador’s Cafe – they serve real Western food. There’s also my favorite bookstore, Mandarin Books. They have a lot of books they publish themselves. If you’re interested in Chinese ethnic minorities or travel writing from pre-Communist China, that is the place to go. I picked up several books there.
We then hung out in the bar/cafe area of our hostel. They have really good drinks there. I tried this beer from Laos, which was really good. Very different from Chinese beer.
We then met our friend Ruby, who was meeting us from Hangzhou. We went back to Culture Alley to eat dinner together. There was this vegan Japanese restaurant – hardly something you expect to find in China. It was so, so good. We unfortunately arrived quite late, so they were out of a lot of stuff.
The next morning, we got up super early to get the train to Xingping! Our travel drama was that there was no KFC at the train station (which is the first and only time that has been the case). We did find something to eat even though it was 6am and most things were closed. We took the train to Guilin, then a bus to Yangshuo, then another bus to Xingping.
